My 20 year old Ford has a backup ECU unit inside its ECU and secondary programs if the ECU itself or half of the ignition or fuel transport fried, or the engine is heated beyond control (coolant loss, etc.).
I had to use at least one of these modes twice during the ownership of my car, too. My ignition coil's one output went dead, twice. Once overnight, once during driving at highway speeds. In both cases I went to where I need to go safely, because the car knew what to do, and the facilities to do so.
These features are written in the user manual as fine prints, but they're not sales points. Nobody advertised these to me.
Tesla is selling an autonomous, connected car with enough electronics to fly a small plane, and they rightfully add redundancies inside it. That's great, that's the way it should be. Then they're removing a redundancy feature which might save lives even if it's rarely used.
It's akin to MCAS system. "It doesn't change the behavior, so the pilots don't need to know". We know how well it went.
I had to use at least one of these modes twice during the ownership of my car, too. My ignition coil's one output went dead, twice. Once overnight, once during driving at highway speeds. In both cases I went to where I need to go safely, because the car knew what to do, and the facilities to do so.
These features are written in the user manual as fine prints, but they're not sales points. Nobody advertised these to me.
Tesla is selling an autonomous, connected car with enough electronics to fly a small plane, and they rightfully add redundancies inside it. That's great, that's the way it should be. Then they're removing a redundancy feature which might save lives even if it's rarely used.
It's akin to MCAS system. "It doesn't change the behavior, so the pilots don't need to know". We know how well it went.