Tesla announced a recall related to its cars equipped with a heat pump. An initial relief for that to be finally addressed was rubbed out by disappointment with how the company tackled the issue. First, the EV maker treated it just like a problem with defrosting the windshield. Secondly, because it thinks an OTA (over-the-air) update will solve this.
According to the Part 573 Safety Recall Report that NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) released about this recall, 26,681 cars are affected in the U.S. That’s important to mention because many other vehicles built in China also present heat pumps. Although we have not heard of Chinese customers complaining about it, at least one Tesla Model 3 made in China and sold in Europe has a heat pump defect. The car belongs to Lauri Orrainen, from Finland.
Tesla described the problem as an issue with the EXV (Electronic Expansion Valve): “controller communication interruptions” caused by “firmware release 2021.44 through 2021.44.30.6.” According to the EV maker, each of these communication failures would make the EXV open a little because it tries to realign – the company did not explain why. After a while, the EXV is completely opened. In temperatures below -10ºC (14ºF), that “may trap refrigerant inside the evaporator and may deplete the refrigerant from the active components in the system. The depletion may result in fail-safe compressor stoppage, and cause loss of cabin heating.”
In other words, there would be no physical issues with the valve or the heat pump itself, just a software glitch. It would also be limited to vehicles delivered by December 10, 2021, with the firmware we already mentioned. Tesla states that older cars received the same software, but the main concern would be with vehicles first delivered with the defective software. That does not match the reports we have.
Photo: Mark
In our first article about the problem, we told our readers about two cases. Mark purchased his Model Y in October 2020. He had heat pump issues in January 2021, when Tesla replaced the Super Manifold. Unfortunately, Mark had the problem again in December 2021. With his children in the car in a -30ºC (-22ºF) environment, they could have frozen to death.
Tyler Selvig took delivery of his Model Y in November 2021 and lost heating in his car around the same date Mark faced the same problem and in very similar life-threatening circumstances.
On top of all that, the white hat hacker GreenTheOnly showed a heat pump video in Russia in which the equipment presented evident mechanical issues. No OTA update will manage to fix that.
Photo: GreenTheOnly/Twitter
Even if it did, the problem Tesla points out as the flaw’s cause was also due to software that was not sufficiently tested before being released to customers. Had Tesla properly evaluated the firmware update, it would have been its engineers almost freezing to death in cold-weather conditions. Regular customers would have been spared from discovering them in the worst possible way.
If that was not enough, Tesla also issued the recall not because of how dangerous it is for a vehicle to lose heating in very low temperatures. It did so because affected cars do not comply with FMVSS 103, S4.2, which “requires 80% minimum defrost of critical area C at 20 minutes.” There is no word about any safety concerns for not keeping passengers warm in freezing temperatures.
Photo: Lauri Orrainen
Tesla almost insinuates the recall might not be necessary. According to the company, “while the windshield defrost system continues to operate with the condition present, defrost performance may not fully comply with FMVSS 103.” Again, no word about the passengers’ lives. If it were not for the infringed federal regulation, we wonder how the company would fix the problem with the EXV – a technical service bulletin, perhaps? Nothing at all?
The way this recall was framed and handled, we have serious doubts they will end customers' complaints about the heat pump. We just hope that nobody gets hurt in cold areas due to these problems.
Google News