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Tesla Model S locks up in the middle of a highway
- soheil 5y agoHow is this any different than any other car having a mechanical problem "in the middle of a highway"? Cars break down all the time. Using the term "locks up" makes it sound like the car is running Window 95 and it just got the blue screen of death. For all we know this could be a mechanical issue that led the car to not start. Even if it's a computer related issue to use the term "locks up" is still pretty uncalled for. There are computer modules in almost any modern car that control the engine and other mechanical aspect of the car that can and do fail regularly leading to all sorts of failures, but nobody says their car "locks up" when that happens.
- simion314 5y agoFrom my reading the issue is not that the car stopped working but it actually locked up so you can't push it to the side. I hope we get more info what was the cause, would be hilarious if it was some multimedia issue.
- soheil 5y agoThis can happen to any car if there is a transmission failure.
- simion314 5y agoMaybe, soem rare issue that affects you inthe midle of a high way so you get stuck and can't put the car on neutral and coast to the side. But to be fair we would need to know why this was the safest thing that a Tesla could do, hopefully we will get more info that is not quickly DMCA. And before someone would label me some anti-Tesla something, I was also critique of Uber self driving and I am a big critique of other big tech giants so if you label me you need a more generic term.
- davidgould 5y ago> so if you label me you need a more generic term. Does Luddite work for you?
- simion314 5y agoNo, maybe something with anti-corporation. Waymo seems miles better then Tesla so I can be more objective when the tech is actual good.
- Yaggo 5y agoThe car is "locked up" on purpose, because it applies parking brakes for safety reasons. It's not a multimedia issue (infotainment). There's a separate driving computer with sufficient redundancy functionality. It's likely a problem with 12V power if the critical functionality freezes. You can even reboot the infotainment system (the main screen) when driving and the car drivers perfectly fine.
- simion314 5y agoWhy no manual override also for safety reasons ?
- Yaggo 5y agoYou can't provide manual override for electronically controlled system in the case of power failure. To disengage an electronic parking brake, at least in Teslas, you need power. If there's a serious problem in power supply (of 12V power), the computer must put the car in the likely safest configuration and shutdown to prevent any kind of erratical behaviour. Anyway, in an unlikely situation that the driver fails to pull off safely in case of critical system failure (remember, steering and brakes always work), and the car stops on lane, you probably don't want to risk your life by pushing the car. For a towing truck the parking brake is not much a problem.
- simion314 5y ago>you probably don't want to risk your life by pushing the car. Does the car come with emergency sings to place on the road so you don't kill others with an abandoned car in middle of the street? (I am not sure if in US first aid kit and emergency stuff(signs,fire extinguisher) are mandatory)
- Yaggo 5y agoMine came with an emergency triangle (I'm in EU).
- jdlshore 5y agoThis thread seems a bit bizarre to me. At the risk of sounding like a Tesla apologist—I’m not, but I know there’s a fair few out there—the author has two main complaints: 1) In an emergency situation, Tesla didn’t send an emergency tow truck, but instead directed him to call 911. Well, yeah! It’s an emergency, call 911! That’s what it’s there for. They would have dispatched his call to the appropriate highway service and gotten his car out of the road. Why the fuck didn’t he call 911 immediately, as soon as he was safe, instead of hoofing it down the road to a random work crew? (The cherry on the top: he expresses surprise that said random work crew doesn’t have number of CHP. You know who does? The 911 dispatcher!) 2) His car died in the middle of the road for unknown reasons. And… that’s it. Unknown car failure. Sure, it’s bad, but also not particularly unusual. Car failures happen. They’re often dangerous. Repair work is in progress and nothing else is known. And that’s it. Most of the thread is complaining about self-inflicted inability to get emergency service in emergency situation.
- laichzeit0 5y agoIt also reads like someone in a state of panic. You don’t think clearly. I’ve had worse experiences in older cars. Wind screen wiper getting taken off by a branch in a storm, bonnet flying straight up and slamming into my windscreen, brakes completely failing while going down a hill heading towards an intersection, etc. Panic solves nothing, just makes you stop thinking clearly. At least this guy’s car told him there’s a problem. My dumb mechanical cars had no idea.
- mjevans 5y agoIt might be a better idea to have the car do an auto 911 call and report it's distress. I wonder if the 911 style system could be setup to receive such input as a simple text from advanced vehicles?
- guerby 5y agoIn Europe a system called "ecall" ("emergency" call) is mandatory in all cars sold after april 2018: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECall On my 2019 Tesla Model 3 it's a button near the rear mirror. I've heard that in some cases (crash) the cars makes the call automatically (happened to a friend, after a crash he heard someone talk to him through the system to check if he was ok).
- issa 5y agoThis isn't really a new electric car problem. My 1988 Toyota Tercel did the same thing. Transmission broke and left me completely stranded in the middle of the highway. No way to shift into neutral, no way to move the car. Super dangerous. Get extremely lucky that no one hit me and a friend nearby had a rolling jack so we could get to the shoulder.
- google234123 5y agoA gas car has nevvveeerrr broken down in the middle of the road before. Truly a unique issue.
- bbarnett 5y agoBut this is on twitter.
- fy20 5y agoAlso happens with German cars that have electric gearboxes. Modern cars do not have a way to force them into neutral, so if you have an electrical issue or the battery dies, you need a tow truck with a crane to get you out of there.
- ohgodplsno 5y agoLook a bit more. Most cars have an electronic shift lock override right next to the shift, as well as the keys being able to be popped out to reveal the actual, physical key to control it and go back into neutral.
- eps 5y agoFor newer Bimmers with a dead battery the only way to do it is from underneath the car using a screwdriver.
- TimTheTinker 5y agoMy dad's 92 Civic had a hood latch malfunction while in the left lane going 75mph. The hood opened up, was caught in the oncoming wind, and slammed into the windshield, violently breaking it and completely obscuring his view. Fortunately he was able to pull over into the median shoulder without getting hurt or causing a collision... but he was pretty shaken.
- slg 5y agoIt is weird that if anything goes wrong in a Tesla it suddenly becomes international news regardless of how frequently that same thing might happen in any other make of vehicle.
- avalys 5y ago“Someone did a bad thing on the internet!” yawn “Someone did a bad thing on Facebook!” Call the Washington Post!
- mft_ 5y agoIt drives clicks for lazy journalists. Although, it’s worth noting that part of Elon/Tesla’s approach to marketing is to not pay for advertising, and rely quite significantly on social media - with Elon’s sometimes controversial Twitter central to that. One might posit that they have made themselves into the click-worthy meme company that the media now exploit?
- IshKebab 5y agoI don't think so. Electric cars have new and interesting failure modes (e.g. not having neutral so you can't tow them) and Tesla takes a very... casual attitude to safety critical software development so people are naturally interested when it goes wrong. I'm sure when petrol cars started breaking down and horse and carts didn't it was news too. That's why they call it news.
- paulkon 5y agoWhy isn’t there a low level override button for neutral?
- Yaggo 5y agoThat does not make sense. Electric cars don't really have a concept of neutral, because they have no gears or clutch (with few exceptions, such as two-gear Taycan). Yes, the "gear selector" has N as well, but that's just software trick (like all R/N/D "gears") which lets the car to roll when you lift your foot from power pedal, instead of applying regenerative braking. If the car detects a problem in power supply circuit, it's perfectly rationale action to engage the electric parking brake as "last wish" when the car has stopped, because there are no other mechanism to prevent the car from rolling. In most cases that's the safest option, because freely rolling car is very dangerous. A side note: Tesla has a sort-of reduntant 12V power supply, because it has a traditional 12V battery and also a 12V DC-DC converter from the high-voltage battery pack. So in theory you can lose either of those and still safely drive the car to a stop. But there can also be a problem with the 12V circuitry itself, e.g. in chassis grounding, which can cause all kind of weird problems and even total failure. This is not an unheard problem especially among older Model S cars such the one in the picture.
- pengaru 5y ago> because freely rolling car is very dangerous Practically every single car has a freely rolling mode the operator can easily select, despite being, according to you, "very dangerous". For an EV like a Tesla neutral would be just not energizing the motor and letting it turn freely. There are hydraulic brakes on the car, are there not? These should always be available, even when non-boosted it's just a matter of standing on the pedal. Most vehicles in addition to this have a mechanical "emergency" or "parking" brake for actuating the rear calipers mechanically. There's nothing about a Tesla precluding the same manual brake methods practically every car has had since before I was born, which are the primary ways you stop the car from rolling when in neutral. At least this way you're always able to roll a vehicle when needed, even if it's inoperable for whatever reason. Teslas are just annoying.
- londons_explore 5y agoWhen this stuff happens, the car doesn't jam the brakes on and do an emergency stop. You still have the cars forward momentum, which should be fine to get you to the shoulder. Then when the car stops, it puts the break on. I'd much prefer that than not put the break on and have it roll down a hill unoccupied later and kill someone.
- Yaggo 5y agoExactly. The critical part is to realize the situation as a driver and react immediately, i.e. steer the car to safe place (e.g. shoulder) before losing too much momentum.
- system2 5y agoAs you also might know, the majority of drivers are really bad at reacting to emergency situations. He probably panicked.
- Aissen 5y agoIt can be really dangerous, as you lose speed, to try to reach the shoulder lane. Hard to judge without context.
- londons_explore 5y agoIn most countries (not the USA), speeds are lower in each lane towards the shoulder. That way, as you lose speed, you can seemlessly change towards the shoulder. It's the same thing I would do if I had an underpowered and heavily laden car or truck and came to a big hill that the car could only get up at 40 mph - change lanes towards the shoulder so that people with more powerful cars can overtake. It has a bunch of safety benefits too, like knowing people always will be passing you on only one side, making driving more predictable, and hence safer.
- pengaru 5y agoRecently I had to talk a friend out of hastily buying a new car after having her boyfriend's Prius abruptly lose all power on her in the middle of heavy traffic on the 5 (CA). Turns out this is a common thing with his generation of Prius, something about the motor controller inverter thingy overheating.
- aakour 5y agoThis happened to me (luckily not on the highway). Teslas, and probably other EVs, have a pyro fuse which physically severs the connection between the main battery and the rest of the electric system in the case of overcurrent or an accident. When that happens it completely bricks the car (to avoid nasty things like battery fires), and the fuse has to be completely replaced. The 12V system is separate, so things like lights, infotainment & door opening buttons continue to work. The pyro fuse quite literally blows up with an audible thud when this happens.
- paganel 5y ago> car is bricked in the middle of a 6 lane hwy Oky, what the heck! This is one of my biggest nightmares as a driver, those at Tesla should be made responsible for this type of behaviour from their product. I know any car may die in the middle of the highway but from what the guy writes he couldn't put it in neutral so that he couldn't push it over to the side of the highway. That's a big no-no. Again, Tesla must be held accountable.
- option 5y agoOne of the mind blowing downsides of electric cars I recently experienced (with Leaf) is inability to shift to neutral once the car dies. This happened to me at the middle of the intersection - many people stopped and offered to help me push the car out of the way but this wasn’t possible! How is being able to shift to neutral even when the car is completely off is not the legal requirement???
- dhsysusbsjsi 5y agoI had a combustion engine car die on me once too. Later I downloaded the fault which indicated “bad fuel”. True story. The most amazing thing is how VW didn’t send me a rescue crew and a free show bag. And even more puzzling, I’m still unsure why it didn’t get front page HN and a million anti-VW hits. Puzzling.
- manojlds 5y agoI have had my (manual) car die too, but pushing it off road wasn't a problem. Starting the car when battery is down and using 2nd gear to push-start with help of strangers was possible too. I haven't used a automatic car, do they start easily by pushing like a manual can? Guess the problem is really technology (and maturity of it.)
- NullPrefix 5y ago>I haven't used a automatic car, do they start easily by pushing like a manual can That's one way to brick an automatic car.
- norvvryo 5y agoAlmost all cars with automatic transmissions cannot be push started. If I recall correctly, that's because the hydraulic pump that allows the transmission to shift into gear is driven by the input shaft in most designs.
- numpad0 5y agoWhy isn’t electric parking brake operable/operated by 12V system? I’m sure it’s that way on normal cars.
- OneTimePetes 5y agoNeeds a small drone in the back of the car, with a glowing cone, that auto dispatches in such situations and diverts traffic.
- mkhpalm 5y agoTesla's don't have shift lock overrides? I thought that was a department of transportation requirement for all car makes to sell in the US market.
- uslic001 5y agoMy BMW Z4 shut down in the middle of a busy 8 lane road in my town. Temperature sensor went out and the engine shuts off when this happens. I have never been honked and yelled at some many times in my life. Nothing I could do. I had to wait for a tow. It was daytime so it could have been worse.