Tesla’s Full Self-Driving computer failure leaves customers in bad situations without many important features and depletes battery packs faster for months.
We found examples of the issue arising as far back as July. The problem can start quickly, within a few miles on a brand-new car or after a few hundred to a few thousand miles.
When the computer fails, many vehicle features stop working, like active safety features, cameras, and even GPS, navigation, and range estimations.
Tesla’s fix was to replace the computer completely, but sources also mentioned a temporary software fix to enable some of the features in the meantime.
It’s hard to estimate precisely the affected population. At the time of the article, we had received dozens of customer complaints and had sources inside Tesla estimating that, based on service requests, thousands of new Tesla owners are experiencing this issue.
We reported that this should lead to a recall since features like backup cameras are now considered a safety feature and required on new vehicles by NHTSA, but Tesla hasn’t released a service bulletin nor has a notice been posted with NHTSA.
Electrek contacted NHTSA to ask if they were aware of this issue. We will update if we get an answer.
Since publishing our original report on this issue last month, dozens of other customers reached out about the problem. They are reporting long wait times to get a new computer as Tesla tells them that it needs more parts, presumably the new computers.
Some showed documents to Electrek that showed they didn’t have an appointment to replace their computers until into February. For some customers, that would mean more than two months with severely handicapped vehicles.
On top of the previously mentioned disabled features, customers have voiced other problems living with their brand-new vehicles without a working computer. The computer appears to get stuck in an “auto-update loop”, which drains the battery faster.
A customer with this issue estimated that his Model 3 is consuming about 5 kWh per day when parked, doing nothing with this computer issue.
Some owners expressed concerns about faster battery degradation and wear on other components because of this issue. It’s also a major issue for people who don’t have home charging yet, and their vehicles are stuck discharging faster with this issue.
Electrek has seen documents showing that Tesla acknowledges that the computer issue is an “internal short.”
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.
“We’re all trying to find the guy who did this,” said the hot-dog–costumed protagonist of a 2019 comedysketch, pretending not to know who had crashed a hot-dog–shaped car.
In the sketch turned popular meme, bystanders didn’t buy his story. Scientists, and the rest of us,might well follow their lead now, in contemplatingNovember’s annual Pew Research Center survey of public confidence in science.
The Pew survey found 76 percent of respondents voicing “a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests.” That’s up a bit from last year, but still down from prepandemic measures, to suggest that an additional one in 10 Americans has lost confidence in scientists since 2019.
On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
The Pew survey’s results, however, show this propaganda worked on some Republican voters. The drop in public confidence in science the survey reports is almost entirely contained to that circle, plunging from 85 percent approvalamong Republican votersin April of 2020 to 66 percent now. It hardly budged for those not treated to nightly doses of revisionist history in an echo chamber—where outlets pretended thatmasking, schooland business restrictions, and vaccines, weren’t necessitiesin staving off a deadly new disease. Small wonder that Republican voters’excess death rates were 1.5 timesthose among Democrats after COVID vaccines appeared.
Instead of noting the role of this propaganda in their numbers, Pew’s statement about the survey pointed only to perceptions that scientists aren’t “good communicators,” held by 52 percent of respondents, and the 47 percent who said, “research scientists feel superior to others” in the survey.
That explanation echoes the “kick me” sign that scientific institutions have taped to their backsides over distrust at least since 1985, when the U.K.’s Royal Society warned of “[h]ostility, even indifference, to science and technology,” in a report, The Public Understanding of Science. “Scientists must learn to communicate better with all segments of the public,” it concluded.
That prescription matches scientific responses to the Pew Survey results, with National Academies of Sciences chief Marcia McNutt telling the Washington Post: “[T]his gives us an opportunity to reexamine what we need to do to restore trust in science.” And it matches the advice in a December NASEM report on scientific misinformation: “Scientists, medical professionals, and health professionals who choose to take on high profile roles as public communicators of science should understand how their communications may be misinterpreted in the absence of context or in the wrong context.” This completely ignores the deliberate misinterpretation of science to advance political aims, the chief kind of science misinformation dominating the modern public sphere.
It isn’t a secret what is going on: Oil industry–funded lawmakers and other mouthpieces have similarly vilified climate scientists for decades to stave off paying the price for global warming. A study published in 2016 in the American Sociological Review concluded that the U.S. public’s slow erosion of trust in science from 1974 to 2010 was almost entirely among conservatives. Such conservatives had adopted “limited government” politics, which clashes with science’s “fifth branch” advisory role in setting regulations—seen most clearly in the FDA resisting Trump’s calls for wholesale approval of dangerous drugs to treat COVID. That flavor of politics made distrust for scientists the collateral damage of the half-century-long attack on regulation. The utter inadequacy of an unscientific, limited-government response to the 2020 pandemic only primed this resentment—fanned by hate aimed at Fauci—to deliver the dent in trust for science we see today.
“Surveys are well-suited for measuring attitudes and describing changes in views over time. They are less well-suited for parsing potential causal factors,” says survey lead author Alec Tyson, when asked why Pew refrained from making this obvious connection. “While beyond the scope of this particular effort, we share an interest in scholarly efforts to understand the role of partisan rhetoric and the broader information environment in shaping views.”
Their aversion doesn’t mean we all must play make-believe about where the distrust for science springs—from politics. Perhaps the clearest sign of the propaganda campaign is that Republican politicians have gotten high on their own supply of antiscience hokum. With Trump headed back to the White House, his profoundly unqualified pick for Department of Health and Human Services chief isRobert F. Kennedy, Jr.,whose antivaccine advocacy contributed to 83 measles deathsin American Samoa in 2018. For the National Institutes of Health he has picked Stanford University’sJay Bhattacharya, one of three authorsof a lethally misguided 2020 plan—pushed then on the Trump White House—to spur coronavirusinfectionsthat would have caused, “the severe illness and preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands of people,” according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Neither of these hot-dog-guy picks should be allowed anywhere near our vital health agencies.
“It’s obviously this guy, right,” say the cops at the end of the hot-dog-guy sketch, before setting off in his pursuit. Making that same call on recognizing where the distrust for science comes from today is just as simple.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
Editor’s Note: We aim to bring you stories about the war that no one else does.
Learning about Ukrainian society and culture is one way to make sure that people abroad don’t forget about what’s happening here. Support our mission? Upgrade now.
Former serviceman Serhii* has one major red flag he’s looking out for in potential girlfriends at a blind dating event in the heart of Kyiv.
“The main thing is that my partner does not listen to or consume Russian content,” Serhii said.
Five minutes. That’s how much time each man and woman have to get acquainted at the event. Then a bell rings, signaling it’s time to switch partners.
Serhii is one of 50 participants who are all here hoping to find their match. “Language is important, as are political preferences. It's unusual to be in such an atmosphere: people laugh, communicate, and it's amazing,” he went on.
People like him – and even veterans with amputations – are frequent guests at speed dating events just now.
After the start of the full-scale invasion by Russia into Ukraine, approaches to dating and choosing partners have changed.
Veterans' injuries or amputations are not seen as barriers to relationships. Instead, patriotism, readiness to contribute to Ukrainian victory, the use of the Ukrainian language, and the rejection of Russian culture – these have become more decisive dating attributes.
The new season of TV dating show The Bachelor, where the main character is a soldier with two amputations, have meant these changes have received massive coverage in the Ukrainian media lately. The shifting dating landscape has not only transformed the perception of relationships in Ukraine, it also highlights the changing values in society.
There are about 50,000 people with amputations in Ukraine. For context, during all of World War I, approximately 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons underwent amputation because it was often the only way to save their lives.
This is Serhii’s first speed dating event. Previously, he tried Tinder, but he prefers live communication. During the evening, he liked a few women – and got the phone numbers of some he plans to keep talking to.
The format is very popular among Ukrainians. Alisa Samusieva has been organizing speed dating events for over 12 years. During the full-scale invasion, the demand for speed dating has only increased. It is particularly useful for servicemen who, due to their military service, don’t have as much time to search for love.
Alisa Samusieva, the founder of the ‘TetATet’ Speed Dating Club.
Alisa and her company organize two speed dating events per week. Usually, around 50 people attend each event. Most of the five minute meetings don’t end in romance – but quite a few do. Alisa occasionally receives thank-you messages, and even wedding invitations from happy couples who met at her events.
Alisa says that these days, up to three veterans attend each event. One of them was a 38-year-old serviceman with the surname Chuikov, who lost his left leg in the war. The prosthetic didn’t scare the women at all, and he received the most matches.
Military journalist Svitlana Kyrhan, who recently tried to find love on Ukraine’s most popular dating show, said that a military background is a must for her.
“I wouldn’t be able to build a relationship with someone who is disconnected from the military. We wouldn’t understand each other. No matter how close they were to the military or what civil position they held, if they hadn’t gone through this path, they couldn’t have been mentally close to me,” Svitlana said.
Svitlana was a participant in the new season of the reality show The Bachelor, where the main male contestant is a military man with amputations of both legs.
His name is Oleksandr Budko.
Oleksandr Budko poses for a portrait in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 6, 2024. (Photo by Alice Martins/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
This season of the show has become a true sensation. The project aimed to showcase relationships with military personnel, particularly with veterans with disabilities.
Oleksandr Budko is a charismatic veteran with blue eyes, tattoos, and a black motorcycle. A former platoon commander of the 49th Infantry Battalion, known as the ‘Carpathian Sich,’ he lost both legs in August 2022 due to a missile strike in the Kharkiv region.
Despite his injury, Budko actively advocates for the rights of people with disabilities. He published his memoirs, ‘The Story of a Stubborn Man,’ and won a bronze medal in swimming at the Invictus Games, an international sports competition for injured veterans.
During the games, producers from the show ‘The Bachelor’ approached him, initially as a joke, but later seriously, offering him the role of the main character for the new season.
Oleksandr Budko rides a motorcycle in Kyiv. (Photo by Alice Martins/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
And it has worked, Budko gained incredible popularity. Proof of this is the record number of applications submitted by girls to be on the next series of the Ukrainian ‘Bachelor.’
Svitlana thought she knew where she was going in life and love. She had already been married. Her husband had been fighting since 2014 and continued after the start of the full-scale war. However, in 2022, he was killed.
Svitlana managed to survive the grief of the loss, and she wanted to find love again. On the Ukrainian version of ‘The Bachelor,’ she felt a connection with Oleksandr.
“I thought we might have a lot in common and a story could develop,” Svitlana said.
Svitlana on the ‘The Bachelor’ TV show, Kyiv, 2024. Photo: Instagram/svitlava_kyrhan
But that was not to be, and she left the show in the third round. While some people have said that the dating show ‘The Bachelor’ was inappropriate during wartime, Svitlana disagrees.
“Oleksandr is a man who has been to war, and now his goal is to popularise the image of veterans in society. In particular, veterans are also ordinary people who want to love and find love. Veterans come back to Ukraine, often without limbs, so this year's Bachelor was in line with the challenge society faced,” Svitlana said.
At the same time, Svitlana felt that the show wasn’t completely realistic. On screen, Oleksandr is always wearing prostheses and is cheerful, but people with disabilities are more likely to get tired and need to understand what a partner is waiting for in real life.
“I missed the messages of some kind of routine: veterans without limbs often move around in a wheelchair, and this is something that needs to be understood.”
After completing her time in the show, Svitlana told The Counteroffensive that she found a partner. She reveals he is a military man, but keeps the rest a secret.
The Ukrainian version of The Bachelor ended last week. Oleksandr also found a partner: he chose a volunteer: Inna from Kharkiv.
She’s not the only one to fall in love with a veteran.
Sofia Neofitova met Vasyl Ishchenko in December 2020, when he was undergoing rehabilitation after a serious injury on the front lines.
Sofia and Vasyl in the center of Ukraine, August 2024
Vasyl had been fighting in eastern Ukraine since 2019, when Russia first attacked Eastern Ukraine.In March 2020, a missile hit the truck that Vasyl was riding in. There were nine people in the truck, and two of his comrades died. Vasyl sustained a severe injury.
Most of Vasyl’s right leg was amputated, his arm was reattached, and he has a scar across his entire face. He is completely deaf in one ear and almost deaf in the other.
At the time, Sofia was a photographer, and she came across a photo of Vasyl with a garland on his prosthetic leg, and became determined to meet him
Sofia never saw Vasyl's prosthetic leg as a barrier. Together for four years, Sofia takes their mutual problems in stride, even managing tasks like carrying heavy bags alone.
“But that’s just what you do when your boyfriend is going somewhere. Nothing fundamentally different happens,” said Sofia, jokingly adding, “The only problem is stepping over Vasyl’s prosthetic at night.”
Sofia and Vasyl, Kyiv, June 2023
As long as the war is on, all methods of finding love are valid, and speed dating might be the best option.
In Kyiv, there are more and more public advertisements like the one below saying that it's hard to fall in love when you're going to the front tomorrow. But if not now, when?
‘It's hard to fall in love when you're going to the front tomorrow. It's hard, but it's worth it.’ Photo from Instagram.
*Serhii's last name cannot be disclosed for security reasons
Correction: The Counteroffensive made an error in the original version of the post.
We wrote that the number of people with amputations during the full-scale war in Ukraine and World War I is the same, but in fact, during World War I, about 67,000 Germans and 41,000 British people had amputations.
We apologize for the error.
NEWS OF THE DAY:
UKRAINE TO RECEIVE FIRST FRENCH PLANES IN JANUARY: Ukraine is expected to receive three Mirage 2000-5F aircraft as early as January 20, amid intensified Russian airstrikes on civilian targets. According to sources cited by Avions Legendaires, these planes may already be in Ukraine but only conduct training flights.
The aircraft were decommissioned by the French Air Force and have been upgraded to handle more complex missions, including the capability to deploy long-range Storm Shadow missiles. In total, Ukraine will receive about ten French fighter jets.
KYIV CONTINUES TO RECEIVE ELECTRICITY FROM SLOVAKIA: Slovakia's state-owned energy company SEPS will supply electricity to Ukraine as emergency aid, despite previous statements by pro-Russian Prime Minister Fico.
This was preceded by threats by the Slovak prime minister to stop supplying electricity to Ukraine because it had stopped transiting Russian natural gas through its territory. Electricity supplies are important for Kyiv because of the vulnerable state of the power system.
CHINA MAY HAVE DISSUADED PUTIN FROM NUCLEAR WAR: Russia may have considered the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but China dissuaded them, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claimed to Financial Times.
“We have reason to believe that China engaged Russia and said: ‘Don’t go there,’” Blinked said. “Even if the probability went from 5 to 15 per cent, when it comes to nuclear weapons, nothing is more serious.”
UKRAINIAN DRONES ATTACK RUSSIAN MISSILE FACILITY: Ukrainian drones attacked the Avangard plant in the Smolensk region, 300 km from Moscow. It is part of one of Russia's largest missile holdings and mass produces rocket engines. Ukrainian drones also attacked Russia's second-largest seaport, Ust-Luga, overnight.
Want to support our human interest reporting? Show your appreciation by hitting our tip jar. Funds go towards helping get cold weather gear and batteries for our team.
Hovertext: Really every theorem should either describe what it does or have ten thousand names, chained by hyphens, going back to an early hominid named Garg.
You may notice the first half of these instructions are similar to the instructions for a working nuclear fusion device. After the first few dozen steps, be sure to press down firmly and fold quickly to overcome fusion pressure.
On November 9, 2016, the day after Donald Trump was elected as the 45th president, my high school history teacher pulled me back after class.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
Before I could answer, he expressed concern that I should be vigilant in a post-Trump world. “Don’t be surprised if people start telling you to go back to where you came from,” he said.
I’ve often thought about that moment—the unnecessary injection of racial anxiety into my otherwise normal school day—when I think about the irony of progressive identity politics. My parents, both born in India but educated in America, would laugh about their well-intentioned but misguided friends who, in their eagerness to ward off the idea of “otherness,” ended up contributing to it.
Growing up, I was quick to challenge the careless usage of terms like “racist” and “xenophobic” as lazy ways to shut down legitimate debate. Even when I was 16, before I could articulate economic arguments, discussing border security seemed fair game—not because I feared immigrants, but because a country needs to know who’s coming in. Back then, when people called MAGA supporters racist, I thought they were overreacting.
But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.
Log in
