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Tesla-Model-X-2

Has Tesla disabled some of the object detection features of the falcon wing or gullwing doors on the Tesla Model X crossover? An owner has posted a series of YouTube videos of the door on a Model X neatly chopping in half a series of cucumber. This on a machine that manifestly got this week's software release seven.1 ii.32.100 downloaded automatically to his car.

Tesla more than any other automaker has used automatic, over-the-air software updates. It'southward user-friendly for owners. Information technology gets improvements and bug fixes installed far faster than a trip to the dealer. This may be hyper-useful if – if – someone hacks a motorcar and an automaker needs to deliver a fix immediately. It also could modify or disable a safety feature in means an owner might not like, were he or she given a chance to acquire about the alter.

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Gullwing / falcon wing doors are historically problematic

Over the decades, machine doors that swing open with the swivel on pinnacle take been a challenge to keep aligned and easy to shut. A gullwing door, as on the DeLorean (see "Back to the Future"), is a single-slice door. Tesla's variant, which it calls a falcon fly, has a second hinge separating upper and lower halves, allowing it to open in tight spaces. It likewise means more components to align, and realign when they cease working properly.

The Tesla Model X has the falcon wing doors providing admission to the heart and rear seating rows, and more traditional "cocky-presenting" doors in front.

Model X owners accept complained most alignment and endmost issues with the falcon wing doors. Sometimes the door won't shut, apparently considering one of the multiple sensor sets believed something was in the fashion, what's called a phantom object detection. In addition, owners were concerned that the initial setup of the remote cardinal pull a fast one on could open or close all doors with a single, inadvertent, button press.

Multiple changes in the recent software update

Tesla X in garageListening to feedback from Tesla owners, Tesla automatically sent an over the air update this week that was automatically downloaded and installed. It addressed the inadvertant auto-open or -close upshot with the key fob.

But information technology also appears to accept disabled some of the functionality of pressure- and proximity-measuring sensors in the doors. The doors close with enough vigor to cutting a medium-size cucumber in half, co-ordinate to videos on the MeTV YouTube channel, and mash larger cucumbers. Whether a cucumber is analagous to a human arm or leg is difficult to say. (Information technology isn't, unless you have very soft bones. But the implications for your fingers are agonizing — Ed). At least in the videos, the door makes contact with larger objects and so reverses. Annotation that the voiceover on the videos suggests some cause-and-effect conclusions that might be seen in a dissimilar light by other testers.

An onscreen notation within the cockpit entitled What's New in [software] Release seven.one reads in part:

  • Falcon Wing Door closing behavior has been improved

  • The Falcon Fly Door will stop and open up back up sightly if it encounters an obstacle while endmost

Tesla's small-scale response

Several media sites have queried Tesla. Tesla declined comment for a story in Automotive News.  We received this annotate from Tesla, as did Jalopnik (same words): "Nosotros adjusted Model X Falcon Wing doors via a software update in gild to improve closure consistency and reduce false detection of obstacles."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk in the past has spoken broadly near the challenges of making top-hinged doors work well. At the May 31, 2016 shareholder meeting, Musk said:

"In particular, the software that controls the Model Ten and the functioning of the doors has been incredibly difficult to refine, and getting the complex set of sensors to work well has been hard to refine. I think we're almost in that location in making the doors useful."

The original supplier of the doors, Hoerbiger Automotive Comfort Systems, was fired and then sued.