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I wonder if these vehicles wouldn't benefit from an onboard CO detector? Automatic shutoff if the vehicle is stationary and CO hits a given threshold. There's

I wonder if these vehicles wouldn't benefit from an onboard CO detector? Automatic shutoff if the vehicle is stationary and CO hits a given threshold. There's indubitably a bunch of reasons not to do it that way...

Qwertie 8y ago
The car would probably be undrivable in India
- schiffern 8y ago
  I believe the parent poster was referred to the keyless start feature only, not shutting down during regular driving. But if keyless start isn't available (and gives a warning message) when the ambient CO levels are borderline hazardous ... isn't that a feature, not a bug? Now that you mention it, it would be nice to get a warning light during driving as well. Or better yet a PPM reading.
joshvm 8y ago
On a side note, it's a legal requirement in some countries to having a working CO detector in the home, certainly for rented properties in the UK. Also in some (30+) states by the looks of it [1]. A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335517300013 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221133551...
- schiffern 8y ago
  >A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life. True, but making the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requiring the $5 sensor in that $10 detector in every vehicle equipped with keyless start (or perhaps, every vehicle) would lead to nearly 100% deployment as the vehicle fleet is replaced. By comparison, despite decades of passing laws and funding public education campaigns, only 33% of households ("occupied units") having a working CO detectors[1], and 40% of "working" detectors failed to alarm in hazardous levels[2]. So overall, just 20% of households have adequate CO protection. FTA: > From news reports, lawsuits, police and fire records and incidents tracked by advocacy groups, The Times has identified 28 deaths and 45 injuries since 2006, but the figures could be higher. Let's estimate they found 1/3 of all cases, for a total of 56 deaths and 135 injuries. Estimating $6m per statistical life and $3m per injury (some injuries, like brain injuries, can be more than $6m for lifetime medical care and lost productivity, but this estimate is intentionally conservative). That's $61.75m annually, compared to the average of 13,532,750 annual vehicles sold in that time period[3], so about $4.5 of harm reduced per vehicle. So economically it seems like a wash, and it prevents awful tragedies. Sounds like a good idea to me. [1] https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf, pp14 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-since-1951/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-...
  - tialaramex 8y ago
    Note that the scarily high 40% failure is heavily biased by people keeping units long past their design lifespan. If you have a 5 year old Carbon Monoxide detector, buy a new one. The failures prior to 5 years in that test are disturbing, but they're not statistically significant on their own so it's hard to be sure how serious that would be in practice.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - tropo 8y ago
    You can buy them new and they don't work. I've come to assume that the commonly available (typical retail store) CO detectors are a fraud.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >True, but making the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requiring the $5 sensor in that $10 detector in every vehicle equipped with keyless start (or perhaps, every vehicle) would lead to nearly 100% deployment as the vehicle fleet is replaced. It's a trade-off, like everything else. That those $5/$10/$50/$100 components add 10x their cost to the vehicle in terms of R&D, testing, supply chain, warrenty claims, etc. All that gets passed down to consumers. Increasing cost increases replacement interval and increases the age of the average vehicle. The result is that incremental progress that improves safety takes longer to trickle down through the market.
ashleyn 8y ago
Possible? Trivially. Doable? Not really, because cost margins are tight on cars. Remember, you're talking about the industry that once viewed it as cheaper to pay out lawsuits than to fix a dangerous fuel tank.
- schiffern 8y ago
  If it were a FMVSS requirement, it would solve the Prisoner's Dilemma of the manufacturers. All vehicles would get more expensive by Z dollars (where Z * annual_vehicles_sold < annual_harm_reduced, in the non-futile case).
dx034 8y ago
Everyone should have a CO detector in their homes and it's already law in some countries. CO poisoning is very dangerous and can happen independent of cars. IF you have a smoke alarm at home there's no reason why you shouldn't have a CO detector as well (those probably make even more sense, CO can kill you even if you're awake, smoke detectors mostly help when you're sleeping).

Qwertie 8y ago

The car would probably be undrivable in India

schiffern 8y ago
I believe the parent poster was referred to the keyless start feature only, not shutting down during regular driving. But if keyless start isn't available (and gives a warning message) when the ambient CO levels are borderline hazardous ... isn't that a feature, not a bug? Now that you mention it, it would be nice to get a warning light during driving as well. Or better yet a PPM reading.

joshvm 8y ago

On a side note, it's a legal requirement in some countries to having a working CO detector in the home, certainly for rented properties in the UK. Also in some (30+) states by the looks of it [1]. A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211335517300013 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221133551...

schiffern 8y ago
>A $10 detector would have probably saved the gentleman's life. True, but making the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requiring the $5 sensor in that $10 detector in every vehicle equipped with keyless start (or perhaps, every vehicle) would lead to nearly 100% deployment as the vehicle fleet is replaced. By comparison, despite decades of passing laws and funding public education campaigns, only 33% of households ("occupied units") having a working CO detectors[1], and 40% of "working" detectors failed to alarm in hazardous levels[2]. So overall, just 20% of households have adequate CO protection. FTA: > From news reports, lawsuits, police and fire records and incidents tracked by advocacy groups, The Times has identified 28 deaths and 45 injuries since 2006, but the figures could be higher. Let's estimate they found 1/3 of all cases, for a total of 56 deaths and 135 injuries. Estimating $6m per statistical life and $3m per injury (some injuries, like brain injuries, can be more than $6m for lifetime medical care and lost productivity, but this estimate is intentionally conservative). That's $61.75m annually, compared to the average of 13,532,750 annual vehicles sold in that time period[3], so about $4.5 of harm reduced per vehicle. So economically it seems like a wash, and it prevents awful tragedies. Sounds like a good idea to me. [1] https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf https://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf, pp14 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222366/ [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-since-1951/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/199983/us-vehicle-sales-...
- tialaramex 8y ago
  Note that the scarily high 40% failure is heavily biased by people keeping units long past their design lifespan. If you have a 5 year old Carbon Monoxide detector, buy a new one. The failures prior to 5 years in that test are disturbing, but they're not statistically significant on their own so it's hard to be sure how serious that would be in practice.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- tropo 8y ago
  You can buy them new and they don't work. I've come to assume that the commonly available (typical retail store) CO detectors are a fraud.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  >True, but making the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards requiring the $5 sensor in that $10 detector in every vehicle equipped with keyless start (or perhaps, every vehicle) would lead to nearly 100% deployment as the vehicle fleet is replaced. It's a trade-off, like everything else. That those $5/$10/$50/$100 components add 10x their cost to the vehicle in terms of R&D, testing, supply chain, warrenty claims, etc. All that gets passed down to consumers. Increasing cost increases replacement interval and increases the age of the average vehicle. The result is that incremental progress that improves safety takes longer to trickle down through the market.

ashleyn 8y ago

Possible? Trivially. Doable? Not really, because cost margins are tight on cars. Remember, you're talking about the industry that once viewed it as cheaper to pay out lawsuits than to fix a dangerous fuel tank.

schiffern 8y ago
If it were a FMVSS requirement, it would solve the Prisoner's Dilemma of the manufacturers. All vehicles would get more expensive by Z dollars (where Z * annual_vehicles_sold < annual_harm_reduced, in the non-futile case).

dx034 8y ago

Everyone should have a CO detector in their homes and it's already law in some countries. CO poisoning is very dangerous and can happen independent of cars. IF you have a smoke alarm at home there's no reason why you shouldn't have a CO detector as well (those probably make even more sense, CO can kill you even if you're awake, smoke detectors mostly help when you're sleeping).