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What about safety is fair? Tesla should have to provide evidence that it's as safe as what it's replacing. For comparison, 3 minutes on google turned up a thes

What about safety is fair? Tesla should have to provide evidence that it's as safe as what it's replacing. For comparison, 3 minutes on google turned up a thesis by Chris Post at MIT comparing alternative steering interfaces for "next generation" electric vehicles, including yokes. Apparently they were more difficult to use and had worse performance across almost all metrics, especially braking time. Maybe Tesla's implementation resolves these issues, but they should demonstrate that. [1] http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66453 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66453

temp667 6y ago
Tesla should simply have to demonstrate that their whole package is safer than other cars being sold (including mustangs and corvettes with zero visibility, terrible handling etc etc). This idea that you can stick a round wheel in some of these terrible sports cars and hypercars and it makes them safe is the height of stupidity. It's the whole package, traction control, safety cage, crumple zones, emergency braking etc.
- zlsa 6y ago
  On the other hand, if swapping out a yoke for a steering wheel measurably improves overall safety on an otherwise identical vehicle, is there still an argument for using a yoke instead of a wheel (even if the car with a yoke is already safer than any other car?)
- thedrbrian 6y ago
  >mustang corvette terrible handling Have you driven either ?
- cool_dude85 6y ago
  >This idea that you can stick a round wheel in some of these terrible sports cars and hypercars and it makes them safe is the height of stupidity. Nobody said that.
  - temp667 6y ago
    Let me be crystal clear. If you advocate that a car design that, in total, is 2x safer than another car design be condemned - you deserve total condemnation. A car might invest a ton in structural safety, and trade that for some cool or sexy features. Be that speed, horrendous visibility or whatever. Some cars this trade results in terrible safety results. Tesla is not one of those yet. There are PLENTY that are. The irony of course is this adamant view around steering wheels ignores their long history of being an actual safety hazard! Those of us with some memory of early safe issues will remember the data showing that in frontal impacts, steering wheels were being forcibly driven into the chests and bodies of drivers, killing them. There are still issues (usually if folks are too close to the wheel) with skull fractures / hand and wrist injuries etc.
    - cool_dude85 6y ago
      I can't agree with this. For instance, if Honda put a car bomb in 1 Civic in a million, it'd still be one of the safest car designs around. But it's totally unnecessary, and they should be condemned. That they're overall much safer than my AMC Gremlin doesn't enter into it.
      - temp667 6y ago
        dude, you are so confused. The car design as a whole. A car designed with a bomb in it is a different design than the other civics. Do you not understand that? This makes my point even more clearly. If you have Civics with bombs and civics without, and the ones without have a safety result that is higher overall, even if there is some arguable benefit of the bomb (ie, less likely to be carjacked?) if the design of the cars without the bomb results in a better safety result, those cars should be preferred. I'm going to leave this here I think - I'm not sure who is on HN anymore, but it does feel like the actual engineering type folks are a smaller group, and so normal tradeoff analysis has turned into the outraged / condemn them type yelling.
        asddubs 6y ago

temp667 6y ago

Tesla should simply have to demonstrate that their whole package is safer than other cars being sold (including mustangs and corvettes with zero visibility, terrible handling etc etc). This idea that you can stick a round wheel in some of these terrible sports cars and hypercars and it makes them safe is the height of stupidity. It's the whole package, traction control, safety cage, crumple zones, emergency braking etc.

zlsa 6y ago
On the other hand, if swapping out a yoke for a steering wheel measurably improves overall safety on an otherwise identical vehicle, is there still an argument for using a yoke instead of a wheel (even if the car with a yoke is already safer than any other car?)
thedrbrian 6y ago
>mustang corvette terrible handling Have you driven either ?
cool_dude85 6y ago
>This idea that you can stick a round wheel in some of these terrible sports cars and hypercars and it makes them safe is the height of stupidity. Nobody said that.
- temp667 6y ago
  Let me be crystal clear. If you advocate that a car design that, in total, is 2x safer than another car design be condemned - you deserve total condemnation. A car might invest a ton in structural safety, and trade that for some cool or sexy features. Be that speed, horrendous visibility or whatever. Some cars this trade results in terrible safety results. Tesla is not one of those yet. There are PLENTY that are. The irony of course is this adamant view around steering wheels ignores their long history of being an actual safety hazard! Those of us with some memory of early safe issues will remember the data showing that in frontal impacts, steering wheels were being forcibly driven into the chests and bodies of drivers, killing them. There are still issues (usually if folks are too close to the wheel) with skull fractures / hand and wrist injuries etc.
  - cool_dude85 6y ago
    I can't agree with this. For instance, if Honda put a car bomb in 1 Civic in a million, it'd still be one of the safest car designs around. But it's totally unnecessary, and they should be condemned. That they're overall much safer than my AMC Gremlin doesn't enter into it.
    - temp667 6y ago
      dude, you are so confused. The car design as a whole. A car designed with a bomb in it is a different design than the other civics. Do you not understand that? This makes my point even more clearly. If you have Civics with bombs and civics without, and the ones without have a safety result that is higher overall, even if there is some arguable benefit of the bomb (ie, less likely to be carjacked?) if the design of the cars without the bomb results in a better safety result, those cars should be preferred. I'm going to leave this here I think - I'm not sure who is on HN anymore, but it does feel like the actual engineering type folks are a smaller group, and so normal tradeoff analysis has turned into the outraged / condemn them type yelling.
      - asddubs 6y ago