Chinanews client, Beijing, September 29th (Zhang Xu) Tesla has always been known for its sense of technology and intelligence, but it also brings some hidden worries in the application of new technologies.
On September 23, Tesla's global system was down for a while, causing Tesla owners to be locked out of the car, and even some owners were trapped in the desert for a long time without rescue.
And this month, a Tesla owner in Chongqing also appeared "catch cars," and his car was connected to other owners' apps.
Downtime occurs every year, this year is particularly big
"HELP!" On the morning of September 23rd, Eastern Time, a Tesla owner called for help on social media, saying that he was at a super charging station in the desert and was locked out of a Tesla Model 3, and the Tesla app could not Connected to the vehicle, he has dialed the emergency roadside assistance number for nearly two hours.
Tesla owners ask for help online.
The Tesla system downtime that occurred on September 23 affected car owners in many countries around the world.
Judging from the car owners' heat map on Tesla's network interruption on DownDetector, most of the car owners who suffered network interruption came from the United States, including cities such as San Francisco, Boston, New York and Chicago, and some came from European countries such as the United Kingdom and Germany.
The same downtime problem also appears in Tesla's energy products, and users cannot monitor the operating status of the system.
In addition, Tesla's official website also failed, the internal system was paralyzed, and the customer connection function could not be accessed, resulting in staff unable to handle delivery and order matters.
Unlike other manufacturers, the Tesla APP is an important tool for car owners. It can control many functions on the car, and the key is one of them.
Although Tesla officially recommends that car owners prepare physical car keys, many car owners are used to the convenience of APP and don't care about this reminder.
A heat map of car owners on the DownDetector about Tesla's network outage.
In addition to the key, Tesla owners can also remotely adjust the air conditioner, trunk, etc. through the APP, and monitor the charging status, locate the vehicle, reserve various services, and unlock the Autopilot system.
Many functions are integrated, which means that once there is a problem with the APP, it will have a huge impact on the car owner.
In fact, the problem of Tesla's network interruption has appeared for several years in a row, but this time it has spread more widely than usual.
In 2016, the Tesla system was paralyzed for a whole day, and the car owner was able to reconnect to the Internet and use remote data, streaming music and other functions.
At the time, Tesla stated that the problem was on the network of North American broadband provider AT&T.
In 2017, Tesla's App and API (application programming interface) were down for almost 24 hours.
In May 2018, Tesla experienced a large-scale network failure, car owners could not log in to the official website, and the APP was down for a long time.
In September 2019, during the morning rush hour in the United States, the Tesla APP was down on a large scale, and the failure lasted about 4 hours, and the car owner could only take a taxi to work.
In May 2019, a large number of domestic car owners reported that the Tesla APP was down, and the navigation and positioning, dashboard, and central control screen were all "shut down" and could only be opened blindly.
Although the problem was fixed in less than two hours, a car owner discovered that the Tesla API domain name certificate had expired and did not renew in time.
In response, Tesla said: If you need an emergency connection, you can temporarily set your phone to May 11.
At the same time, the inability to connect to the network does not affect the Bluetooth key. If you cannot connect to the next time, do not rush to log out.
On September 27, some car owners reported that they could not connect to the car.
Photo courtesy of respondents
It is worth noting that on September 27, 2020, in the domestic car owners forum, five or six Chinese Tesla owners said that they could not connect to the car suddenly, but the failure duration was short and the reason is unknown.
Thousands of miles of "cars", who controls my car?
Downtime prevents you from opening the door. What happens if your Tesla is controlled by someone else’s app?
"I opened the Tesla app today and discovered that it has become someone else's car. Although I have seen this on Weibo before, I still feel surprised when it really happened to me, and then I am deeply worried." On September 15th, Mr. Jin, the owner of Chongqing Tesla Model 3, said on Weibo that he had encountered a "crawl".
Mr. Jin told reporters that when he opened the Tesla APP, the vehicle identification code on the APP was his own, but the vehicle location displayed was not in Chongqing, but in Hengyang, Hunan.
It just so happened that the two owners were in the same owner group, and they both tried remote control without the vehicle driving, and they both managed successfully.
Tesla responded with screenshots.
That night, the Weibo authentication account "Tesla Customer Support" with only a few thousand fans reposted Mr. Jin's Weibo and said: "After thorough investigation, this is because the maintenance staff mistakenly entered similar information when replacing the on-board computer. Vehicle identification number, leading to mismatch of information."
This is not the first time that Tesla has "clanked cars".
In March of this year, a Tesla owner in the UK also encountered the problem of remotely controlling other people's vehicles.
On August 21st, a Weibo car blogger @袁启聪 said that he received a post from a netizen. On the evening of August 18th, the netizen could not find his car after opening the Tesla APP, but appeared The information of 5 European Tesla vehicles is acquired, and operations such as remote unlocking of doors and opening of windows can be performed.
This netizen said: "After giving feedback to Tesla, it was repaired at 10 o'clock on August 19th. I haven't given me the survey results on August 20th, and how to ensure that this kind of thing will not happen technically in the future."
This is not the first time that Tesla's "swimming" has happened.
Zhang Xiang, an automotive analyst at the Talent Exchange Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, believes that the Tesla APP “crunching” involves the setting and use of user data, which poses a great security risk.
"Users have their own different parameter settings when using the App, such as automatic driving and other functions. The user thinks that he is in the usual automatic driving state, but because the data setting is wrong, it becomes the data of other cars. Without knowing it, the risk of accidents will increase."
Mr. Jin, who encountered the "crossing of cars", also had the same concerns. He wrote on Weibo: "If I can get into someone else's car, then someone else might get into my car. What if someone else does it while I'm driving." , The high speed suddenly limits me to 80 (km/h)?"
The hidden dangers of Tesla's intelligence
The wave of new energy and intelligence has sent Tesla to the peak of the global automotive industry market value. Compared with traditional car companies, Tesla is more technologically radical, but this also brings some risks to users.
Take autonomous driving as an example. When traditional car companies are hesitant to autopilot, Tesla has already installed the Autopilot system on mass-produced cars. The name Autopilot is actually an auxiliary driving system.
In 2019, 50 fatal car accidents occurred in Tesla vehicles. According to an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 14 of them involved Autopilot.
On April 19, 2019, people came and went at the Tesla electric car exhibition area in the United States, and visitors stopped to watch and experience the ride.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhai Yujia
Tesla is also unreasonable in terms of safety.
On September 20th, at the Global Smart Mobility Conference, Sun Fengchun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, stated that the fire accident rate of new energy vehicles in my country is lower than that of Tesla.
"The 2012-2019 Tesla safety report shows that a Tesla vehicle combustion accident occurs every 280 million kilometers. According to statistics from the 2018-2019 national regulatory platform, my country’s new energy vehicles have a combustion accident every 447 million kilometers. ." Sun Fengchun said.
This year, Tesla has had many accidents.
On June 16, a Tesla Model 3 sedan in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province suddenly increased its speed to 127 km/h. After the owner tried to brake invalid, it eventually hit a mound and overturned and caught fire.
On August 9th, a Tesla Model 3 in Shanghai rushed into a gas station without warning, crashed into anti-collision bars and other facilities and 3 motor vehicles in the station, and injured a staff member and a car owner.
On August 12, a Tesla Model 3 in Wenzhou speeded up for no reason and rushed through the toll gate of the parking lot. The owner was seriously injured and sent to the ICU.
After the incident, the police detected that the driver had neither drunk driving nor drug driving, let alone mental disorders.
On the afternoon of September 5, a Tesla sedan in Nanchong, Sichuan crashed into a number of cars and pedestrians on the roadside. According to Nanchong police, the accident has caused 2 deaths, 6 injuries and damage to many vehicles.
In response, Tesla once posted a response on the Weibo account "Tesla Customer Support", which has only thousands of fans, saying that according to the analysis of vehicle data, there was no malfunction and it would fully cooperate with the police investigation. jobs.
Netizens were not satisfied with Tesla's response.
However, Tesla's "vehicle no problem" response also made netizens dissatisfied, believing that it did not pay attention to the demands of the car owners, nor did it pay attention to the possible quality problems of the vehicles, taking this as an opportunity to improve product quality and after-sales service.
"Automotive intelligence and electrification are the general trend. Electricity lies in the breakthrough of battery technology. Intelligence mainly lies in the coordination of the system, including data and control. The emergence of system downtime and other situations shows that the current smart car experience is still There is a lot of room for improvement, and it takes time to improve. It requires both experience and safety, which is an inspiration for Tesla and the automotive industry." Executive Dean and Professor Pan Helin of the Institute of Digital Economy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law told Zhong Xinnet.
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