New Tesla vehicles leaving the factory will include quirky features designed to prevent abuse of seat adjustment controls. The new seat tracks and measures user-adjusted amounts and disables controls when it detects “excessive” changes.
Tesla has recently started installing new seat motors on select Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, adding to seats built in-house at Yangfeng, China. The new engines are produced by the 110-year-old German company Brose, which supplies many parts to the automotive industry.
This feature will warn you if you adjust too much and eventually disable seat control if you don’t heed the warning. The cars appear to track the number of times the user moves the seat back and forth, unlike lumbar support controls, but eventually, these controls may be included as well.
If that sounds strange and annoying, remember that you’re tinkering with the seat controls here. The first alert-“Excessive use of seat truck motor detected”-occurs within 5 minutes after 90 seconds of use. If you say “Leave It” and mess with the controls for another 30 seconds, the car will completely disable the seat control tracker and give you an “overuse” warning.
