Yesterday Consumer Reports announced that the Tesla Model 3 would miss out on its recommended rating due to several issues. While the publication called out the Model 3’s unsupportive rear seat, excessive wind noise and infotainment issues, the biggest issue was with the electric car’s brakes.
Consumer Reports stated, “The Tesla’s stopping distance of 152 feet from 60 mph was far worse than any contemporary car we’ve tested and about 7 feet longer than the stopping distance of a Ford F-150 full-sized pickup.”
The announcement immediately triggered a response from Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, who announced via Twitter that Tesla would release a firmware update, which will improve the Model 3’s brakes.
Very strange. Model 3 is designed to have super good stopping distance & others reviewers have confirmed this. If there is vehicle variability, we will figure it out & address. May just be a question of firmware tuning, in which case can be solved by an OTA software update.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2018
Elon Musk went on to state that this is the first time that Tesla is hearing about problems with the Model 3’s braking system.
The CR braking result is inconsistent with other reviewers, but might indicate that some Model 3’s have longer braking distances than others. If so, we will address this at our expense. First time we’ve seen anything like this.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2018
Even if Tesla is able to make some improvements to the system over the air, it remains to be seen if it will fix the brake fade issue. Tesla may need to actually upgrade the hardware, which is something that it’s prepared to do.
Even if a physical upgrade is needed to existing fleet, we will make sure all Model 3’s having amazing braking ability at no expense to customers
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2018
While we wait a few days to see how Tesla updates the Model 3’s braking system, Elon Musk also Tweeted out that it may also be able to improve the Model 3 Performance’s actual power output.
Also, not promising anything, but we *might* be able to increase Model 3 Performance power output a little
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 22, 2018
Source: Twitter
