FCA Recall 4.8 Million Vehicles That Get Stuck In Cruise Control

While not all recalls involve software change, a lot of recent recalls require simple software updates but owners have to bring their cars to the dealers - a huge waste of time and money, and a burden on the car owners.

The resistance to OTA software updates from major automakers proves how outdated their business model is.

This is an illogical statement: "The resistance to OTA software updates from major automakers proves how outdated their business model is."

How's it illogical? OTA updates are the future, no good reason to avoid it regardless of powertrain. The only people that might push back are car dealers that would rather force people to come to the dealership (potential sales op). Neither consumers nor the manufacturer really benefit (unless it leads to a new car sale).

@SanJoseDriver Illogical people always ask "how is it illogical" when they say something illogical and a smarter person tells them they are illogical.

Not doing OTA software is largely unrelated to the business model of a car. Thus, the first half of his statement does not prove the second half of the statement.

From a consumer perspective, OTA software update is clearly far more efficient than the old method of bringing the car to the dealer for service on software issues (mechanical issues are not discussed here).

There are basically 2 groups of reasons for not having OTA software update on new cars: technical and non-technical. The technical bits have already been solved (see Tesla). The non-technical bits are far more complicated and are not consumer oriented: archaic corporate mindset, fear of change, but most obvious is the interdependency between car companies and the dealer networks. This is the business model these people are desperately trying to hold on to.

Consumers now have more options to chose their next car: has or electric, low tech or hi tech, hi maintenance or low maintenance, buying from dealer or direct, ... The future is clearly heading toward the latter options.

@EVisNow It is quite obvious that you have no direct awareness of the most prevalent types of needs for recall. While many "involve" software, it is not the case often times that is the only issue. Your notion that "it's mostly just a software issue' is NOT the case. But for you ignorance is bliss, so enjoy your ignorance.

MDarringer: "ignorance is bliss"

Yes ignorance is bliss - but in this case it's clearly not mine. I've emphasized "recent recalls ... software updates" and "non mechanical" but you chose to ignore. I understand you have a reputation to keep (in attacking people you don't agree with), but don't you think it's a little childish ?

In the context of this article and FCA of late, OTA is clearly a simple answer to the nightmare of recalling millions of cars for software fixes (4.8M for Cruise Control issue, 1.25M trucks last year for another software glitch, ...)

FCA recalling 4.8M cars can cost over $1B and drag on for months at a tremendous time cost to the affected consumers. If the cars are OTA capable, it can be done in the matter of days while the car owners sleep.

For a normal person, knowingly holding on to a problem with clear solution would be labeled "insane" or "stupid", but for the automakers-dealers structure, it's business as usual. That won't be long until it's no longer a business.

@EVisNow YOU are ignorant.

Whenever a recall is issued for a reflash, one of the protocols is to check the ground for the electrical system. That's troubleshooting 101. Guess what? Grounding issues are quite common across all makes and with the shoddy quality of Tesla, probably even more so.

It is possible for a grounding issue to interfere with the reflash.

Thus, you can reflash the PROM and it will appear to be OK but the grounding issue causes the reflash to operate incorrectly.

Thus, someone such as yourself who is not in the industry and apparently knows NOTHING about basic troubleshooting on cars thinks that OTA is magical. It simply isn't.

You're probably one of those idiots on his iPhone in the service lane who has no clue what's wrong with his car and says "It goes wunka chunka thunka" and expects the service writer to know what the problem is.

So what if OTA is the manufacturer's strategy and due to the extremely likely existence of a grounding issue (sometimes intermittent and sometimes a real b!+ch to troubleshoot) the OTA remedy doesn't work. Is the manufacturer just going to say "Oh it shoulda worked."?

Oh wait. That's how Tesla operates.

Nevermind.

Yeah, I think there is a pretty deep connection between OTA and running a car business. Those that don't OTA will be in a huge disadvantage (both in consumer convenience and maintenance costs). Tesla has been doing it for 5+ years and now just a few other companies are finally getting on board. If an OTA doesn't fix the issue, then you can take in the car. It doesn't make sense to take it in for the 0.1% or less chance that the software fix won't work and there is something like a grounding issue. There is also the element of getting new features over time, which consumers seem to enjoy.

And @SanJoseDriver as someone who has ZERO actual knowledge of what actually goes on in a software update where the car physically comes in, you have no appreciation of what a company like Tesla ISN'T doing for you. Typical snowflake unicorn mindset!

Literally NO ONE is going to NOT buy a vehicle they want if it doesn't have OTA connectivity. Is OTA on the rise? Sure! Is it a magic cure all? Nope! Is it likely to create a new set of problems not seen in conventional recall procedures? Most definitely!

Not Tesla; not newsworthy.

I absolutely agree.