Hacker News Reader

Comment by justapassenger | Hacker News Reader

There were multiple Tesla fires, and they nerfed barriers as a response, without issuing recall (https://electrek.co/2019/10/04/tesla-software-updat-battery-...)

View on HN

I’m now old. Nerfed: The term "nerfing" comes from the online gaming world of Ultima Online.

At one point in the game, the developers reduced the power of swords in melee combat.

This resulted in players complaining that it was like they were hitting each other with nerf bats, not swords.

From then on, if ever something gets made less worth while than it had been originally, it is considered 'nerfed'

From https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nerfed

Pretty sure Nerf preceded Ultima Online https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerf

That is what the preceding comment implies. After all, "nerf bats" directly references them. What was new, was simply the usage of making something worse.

It would have to for the comment to make sense.

Nerf the noun did, but not nerf the verb.

Nerf in a game context was metaphorical, based on Nerf guns. Nerf guns' damage capability was a significant downgrade compared to a real gun. A previously powerful item in a game that was "Nerfed" was therefore a significant downgrade in capability.

Although the nerfed Tesla batteries still charge faster than a brand new Bolt.

Sure, but a Model S costs around twice as much as a Bolt so you’d expect something for that money.

That's a good point. I think it only applies to the older Model S, and they may have paid 3-4x more than a Bolt, although the Bolt may not have been available when most of those were purchased. The 3 and newer S/X should be good.

The Model S is much larger and faster than the bolt, so they definitely got some things for that money.

Yep, they've already worked through any number of issues to achieve their level of performance. In fact they may have already worked through something similar to this particular issue: Those nerfed batteries in your link were nerfed by the same ~10% loss that GM has had to place on Bolts, implying it was the high charge causing both issues. Most telling, Teslas's issue was with batteries they stopped using 4 years ago. I don't know if that signifies a 4-year lead on GM, but they're certainly ahead.

They degraded in that 4 years(2-3 at time of incidents) time, and when put under stresses, they caught fire. Tesla vehicles are not configured to avoid stressing their packs, therefore users were not made aware of degradations.

Isn’t this simple enough and correct enough? I’m tired of their social media native ads. Let’s keep it simple.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com