- Tesla agreed to collect more than 134,000 of its cars due to defective touch screens this week.
- American regulators said the failure of the monitors could affect essential components, such as the rear view camera.
- Tesla agreed with the recall and said its screens should not last more than 5 to 6 years.
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Tesla agreed this week to collect more than 134,000 vehicles with flash memory units that can wear out unexpectedly, making cars’ touch screens useless in some cases, but he didn’t fall without a fight.
In a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration made public on Tuesday, Elon Musk’s electric carmaker said his screens were not failing prematurely – they were just designed that way.
Tesla’s legal chief, Al Prescott, countered the regulator’s definition of a “defect”, arguing that the eMMC memory devices in question were built to last only five to six years. He said that lifespan is standard for infotainment systems in the industry.
“Although the wear rate is strongly influenced by the active use of the central display system, even more so when the vehicle is moving or loading, given a reasonable average daily use of 1.4 cycles, the expected service life would be 5-6 years, “Prescott said. “EMMC flash memory … is inherently subject to wear, has a finite life (as NHTSA itself recognizes) and may need to be replaced during the life of the vehicle.”
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Prescott went on to argue that it would be unreasonable for federal regulators to expect electronic parts to function properly throughout the life of a vehicle, given that “electronic components are becoming increasingly complex and, at the same time, the useful life expected of vehicles has grown substantially.
“It is economically, if not technologically, unviable to expect that such components can or should be designed to last the entire life of the vehicle,” said Prescott.
According to Consumer Reports, the average car on the road is at least 11 years old. Tesla itself sought to extend the life of its vehicles by trying to develop a battery that could last 1 million miles or more, much longer than the typical life expectancy of a gas-powered car.
Teslas are unique in the sense that almost all of their basic functions – from temperature control to engines, seats and brakes – are operated by a computer system. This is useful for Tesla as it can send software updates over the air that significantly change the behavior of the car, something that no other automaker can do today. However, it also means that if the computer or the screen fails, many essential features can come with it.
The recall affects Model S sedans built between 2012 and 2018, along with Model X crossovers built between 2016 and 2018. According to NHTSA, failed screens can affect essential safety functions, such as a backup camera, direction indicators and defroster.
Tesla is recalling 134,951 vehicles in total, less than the approximately 158,000 cars that NHTSA said were initially affected. He has also released firmware updates that are said to solve problems and alert customers when their monitor is close to failure.