Tesla just had its 3rd vehicle recall in a month - and this time 15,900 cars are involved

‘Chief Twit’ Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla, has copped its third vehicle recall in Australia in less than a month from safety regulators, with the latest software glitch involving around 15,900 Model 3 and Model Y cars imported this year.

“Due to a software error, the tail lamps on one or both sides may not illuminate as intended. If this occurs during dark conditions, the traffic behind will have reduced visibility and may not be able to identify the vehicle,” the Department of Motor Transport said in the third recall for Teslas in just over three weeks.

The good news for Tesla owners is that the problem is fixed with a software update, rather than a visit to the mechanics

While recalls are not uncommon – this is the 22nd in November, involving brands including Mercedes, Toyota, Volvo, BMW and Audi – it follows on from a recall of 326 Tesla Model 3 cars on November 2 for cars made between 2017 and 2022 for an issue with the seat belts caused during servicing.

Last week more than 1000 Tesla Model S and Model X sold between 2017 and 2020 were recalled over a software problem with the Electronic Power Assist Steering system that “may result in a reduced or loss of power steering assist and could require greater steering effort from the driver particularly at low speeds”

The problem was due to “a recently changed software calibration issue”, the Department of Transport said in its recall notice.

Again, the problem is fixed with a software upgrade.

But the irony of Tesla’s software problems would not be lost on Twitter engineers, with a new round of firings of software engineers by the social media site’s new owner reportedly occurring on the eve of Thanksgiving, being told in an email notifying them of their dismissals that their coding was not up to scratch.

“As a result of the recent code review exercise, it has been determined that your code is not satisfactory, and we regret to inform you that your employment with Twitter is terminated effective immediately,” the email said.

It’s believed that around 50 engineers were terminated. Others received performance warnings.

On the evening before Thanksgiving, some Twitter engineers received an email saying they were fired because their “code is not satisfactory.” Others received “performance warning” emails asking them to “restore our confidence and demonstrate your contributions to the team”

— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) November 24, 2022

One of the people fired Musk’s latest purge was Ikuhiro Ihara, a highly respected senior software engineer who helped lead the push to expand tweets to 280 characters. https://t.co/6NYEV2Pl4b

— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) November 24, 2022

The sting in the tail for those engineers is they committed to stay under the “hardcore” Twitter 2.0 edict issued by Musk last week, and have been offered 4 weeks of severance pay. Engineers who didn’t sign on and decided to leave Twitter last week – and more than 1000 did – are being paid until the end of January.