Jens Hoffrichter

There are four engineers traveling in a car; a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, an electrical engineer and a computer engineer. The car breaks down.

“Sounds to me as if the pistons have seized. We’ll have to strip down the engine before we can get the car working again”, says the mechanical engineer.

“Well”, says the chemical engineer, “it sounded to me as if the fuel might be contaminated. I think we should clear out the fuel system.”

“I thought it might be an grounding problem”, says the electrical engineer, “or maybe a faulty plug lead.”

They all turn to the computer engineer who has said nothing and say: “Well, what do you think?”

“Um, maybe if we close all the windows, and open them again, maybe it will start working again?”

I really liked that joke….until our Tesla.

In March this year, we got a Tesla Model Y.

When we have been aske, why we got a Tesla, we always joked that it was basically a computer where they had built a car around, and that was the right car for a couple of computer nerds like us. And generally, it is. It is one of the best cars I have ever driven, the regular software updates and feature improvements are really nice, and things like having Spotify directly available on the center console. And it is just a cool piece of technology.

When I drive another car now, a legacy car, it feels really dated. So slow acceleration, and you need to use the brake so often!

A couple weeks ago, when driving back from Gardemoen, the cruise control and autopilot didn’t want to engage. It always said, “The cruise control is currently not available.” And it didn’t start working again next week. So we started searching for a solution.

One of the more outlandish solutions was, “Open all doors, and close them again. Then it should start working again.” I scoffed at that, but decided to give it try. Was quick, and wouldn’t hurt.

And, to my astonishement….cruise control started working again.