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He had me until “It’s not clear Americans can handle this kind of power”. David Roberts would like to you to use a dull knife because you can’t handle a sharp k

• tyingq 5y ago
  >There’s literally thousands of Teslas on the road and he has fears of them “leaping” across intersections. Seems fair, given that some of them come with a "launch control mode / drag strip mode" right in the UI, expressly for the purpose of doing that.
  • avalys 5y ago
    Expressly for the purpose of leaping across intersections, specifically?
    • tyingq 5y ago
      I suspect if you did some research on where that mode was used, intersections would far surpass "at my local dragstrip", yes. And I don't think that would be a surprise to Tesla.
      • giantg2 5y ago
        I suspect that the data would also show that it's rarely used at all.
        • UberFly 5y ago
          I would like to see that data, but I'd bet it's used all the time in all the wrong places.
• phkahler 5y ago
  "OMG the general public can't handle the power" seems like gorilla marketing to me. Kinda like how ads for Viagra seem to love the required warnings "go to the ER if you have an erection for more than 4 hours... 4 hours!".
  • sp332 5y ago
    *guerrilla
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    When Dodge came out with the Hellcat a decade ago they purposefully got it kicked out of an NHRA event by being too fast for its class. They then turned around and took out all sorts of ad space where they then published the text of that "your junk is too fast, don't bring it round here" letter beside a picture of their new car. This is the same thing, but for a polar opposite demographic. The pitch is more or less "do you hate driving? well you'll be happy to hear that even we have a car that people who hate driving think is pretty ok."
    • slowhand09 5y ago
      My daily driver is a Hellcat. 108k miles. Currently on 5th set of tires, 2nd set of brake pads. Its wicked fast. And stops on a 0.000002554BTC. Accelerates, decelerates, corners better than any car I've owned. Do not give this to your kid.
    • giantg2 5y ago
      Pretty much everything has gotten "too fast" for them. The 1/4 mile is no longer a thing. They only do 1/8ths now...
    • rascul 5y ago
      > When Dodge came out with the Hellcat a decade ago they purposefully got it kicked out of an NHRA event by being too fast for its class. It didn't have the required safety equipment. The rules have changed recently, it's allowed now. https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/dodge-demon-nhra-ban-lifted/ https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/dodge-demon-nhra-ban-lif...
• gameswithgo 5y ago
  Within a week of the 1,000 horsepower Model S Plaid being released someone leaped into a house, killing two people and a dog. I've been a performance automotive enthusiast for decades, competed in autocross for years, visited the Houston drag strip many times, and own a 500 horsepower Tesla, and I still agree there should be some kind of power to weight ratio limit on cars used on public roads.
  • cbg0 5y ago
    You make this weird assumption that he leaped into that house because the car had 1000 HP instead of the fact that he was an idiot. The report said he was driving at 113 MPH, which is easily achievable in most modern cars way below even your 500 HP Tesla. A bit off-topic, but having seen a picture of the aftermath of the house (https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2021/10/08/man-who-crashed-tesla-into-house-killing-2-was-going-116-mph-troopers-say/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2021/10/08/man-who-crash...) I have to say I'm glad we build houses out of brick where I live. While there are no guarantees at that speed, it would have definitely slowed the car down more than wood framing.
    • willis936 5y ago
      I don't think bricks will do much against 110,000 Ns. If a wrecking ball weighs 13,000 lbs it needs to be going 41 mph to have the same force as that Tesla. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight%20of%20a%20tesla%20model%20S%20%2A%20113%20mph%20%2F%2013000%20lbs http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight%20of%20a%20tesla...
  • sliken 5y ago
    Why? Scion FRS (famously underpowered, mentioned in every review I've seen) is the car in the USA that in 2021 was the most (at fault) accidents per car sold. Not even 200HP last I looked. I've got a M3P and after keen observation of ever Tesla I see on the road they are the last car I worry about safety wise. The ones I worry about are mostly WRXs, riced out Hondas, and Minivans. Seems like it's a very popular opinion that "my car is fast, but faster cars are insane" ... without much data to prove it.
• _fat_santa 5y ago
  It's not even "power" per say, just instant torque. The Mach-E is rated between 266 and 480HP which isn't very powerful when you compare it to cars like the Model S Plaid and Lucid Air. Instant torque is alot of fun, but in terms of power, you're only ahead for the few moments until a gassers torque curve catches up.
  • itsoktocry 5y ago
    >It's not even "power" per say, just instant torque That's what I was thinking. EVs have a totally different torque curve than ICE cars, but that doesn't imply faster acceleration. In fact, there are a few cars in the non-performance Model 3s price range that will out-accelerate it 0-60. At least the guy was honest about not being a "car guy", though; he's got a 12 year old car, half the stuff he mentions have been standard features on cars for 5+ years.
    • plorkyeran 5y ago
      0-30 time is the relevant thing for city street driving, not 0-60.
• willis936 5y ago
  850 ft-lbs might be a bit too much for the streets. Please, by all means, have as much acceleration as you want on your property or on the track. I personally don't want rich, drunk teens flying their 2-ton death machines into gas stations, through fast food joints, or into me.
  • sliken 5y ago
    I don't see the relationship. Idiots can kill people regardless of car power. I've not seen any relationship between car power and percentage of cars in serious accidents. If you look at the top 10 cars involved in accidents (per 1000 cars), it's not a particularly powerful bunch. In the USA last year the stop accident prone car was a Scion FR-S with under 200 HP (150 lb-feet). The Toyota Prius (even Toyota marketing makes fun of it's performance) is at #8. Personally I feel safer in a capable car, even if it has crazy 0-60 times and impressive HP/Torque numbers.
    • willis936 5y ago
      That's because you're normalizing by the wrong value. You should be normalizing "number of accidents per 1000 cars of the same model". https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...
      • DennisP 5y ago
        From a quick glance at that, a Chevy Malibu with a 0-60 of 7.8 seconds has a worse death rate than a Corvette, which has a time of around three seconds.
        • willis936 5y ago
          The Malibu has a multi-vehicle crash death rate (MV) of 36 and single-vehicle crash death rate (SV) of 24. The Corvette is 4 and 53. Individual model comparisons aren't of much consequence (especially with such incomplete data), but trends are. If you scan the MV and SV columns in the midsize and large sections and compare it to the sports car and 2-door sections you'll see the trend I'm highlighting. The pdf linked on that page is helpful for this. https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf/55/2 https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf...
• 323 5y ago
  He's right though. For example when I'm a pedestrian/on bicycle I can hear when petrol cars get closer and I also know that a car that I just checked is not going to suddenly teleport next to me while I turn the head to check the other direction.
• slowhand09 5y ago
  Agree totally. Comparable to saying "I tried a motorcycle and was surprised at the power and handling. It was fun. But you probably cannot be trusted with this power."
  • asoneth 5y ago
    That seems like a reasonable comparison. If most people switched from driving cars to riding motorcycles I would be willing to wager that they would find it fun and that traffic fatalities would increase. (I say this not to discourage anyone from riding motorcycles but to point out that "fun" and "dangerous" are often positively correlated.)
    • slowhand09 5y ago
      Mandatory "Correlation does not imply..." disclaimer. :-)
• sometimeshuman 5y ago
  "David Roberts would like to you to use a dull knife because you can’t handle a sharp knife." Given I am a poorly coordinated and easily distracted, I only own dull knives. It takes twice as long to saw through meats which equates to an extra minute. I have that kind of time. You do not want someone like me owning a car with godlike acceleration. And we all know how this story ends -- regulations on acceleration. Knowing that, why wait ? Because the anti-regulatory alter of freedom needs human sacrifices first ?
  • giantg2 5y ago
    You can actually do more damage with a dull knife both from the perspective of being more likely to cut yourself when struggling to cut something else, and that the wound tends to be more ragged, bleeding more, and taking longer to heal.
  • chasd00 5y ago
    ironically, dull knives are more dangerous than sharp knives. https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?contenttypeid=1&contentid=263#:~:text=Use%20a%20sharp%20knife,bites%22%20the%20surface%20more%20readily https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?con....
• giantg2 5y ago
  "David Roberts would like to you to use a dull knife because you can’t handle a sharp knife." Hahaha succinctly put.
• deleted 5y ago
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• spike021 5y ago
  >Further on he has an opinion on what American drivers can handle. There’s literally thousands of Teslas on the road and he has fears of them “leaping” across intersections. I constantly see Teslas suddenly zoom in parking lots or on crowded roadways. I've also seen them seemingly lose control and weave in their lane, slightly into the next ones when there's not even any traffic around them. I've also seen the Remote Parking/Recall function totally fail where a Tesla nearly hits me as it attempts a U-turn perpendicular to the row of parking spaces to get through a line of parked cars to its owner in the next row. I'd say any fears of drivers not being able to handle the cars, or even fears of the cars not being able to handle themselves, are quite valid.
  • lamontcg 5y ago
    > I'd say any fears of drivers not being able to handle the cars, or even fears of the cars not being able to handle themselves, are quite valid. Once upon a time I owned a '67 mustang, I know how to change my own oil, I learned to drive on a stick, and I know what a hemi is, and I concur.
• ZoomerCretin 5y ago
  Knives generally only hurt the person using them. Vehicles frequently kill and permanently injure other people.
• asoneth 5y ago
  I agree the author didn't present enough evidence to make a strong claim, but the author's point (that more powerful cars will make roads more dangerous for everyone else) is certainly plausible. Having said that, I also would not trust IIHS safety ratings as evidence that new automotive technologies will ultimately make us safer. For one thing, the vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations typically seem like an afterthought compared to the evaluation done for the vehicle occupants. For another thing, it's entirely possible that many of these new safety features make us collectively less safe by inducing people to drive more miles, faster, and pay less attention while doing so. It took more than a decade before it became clear that the increase in pedestrian fatality rates was largely due to the increase in trucks and SUVs. I suspect it'll take a similar amount of time to find out (empirically) whether electric cars result in communities that are safer or less safe.
• causi 5y ago
  don’t much like driving them. I never learned to drive a stick shift or change the oil The submission clearly doesn't violate the HN guidelines, but article like this make me wonder if someone would be willing to develop a crowdsourced extension for HN that would let adoptees flag posts as "written by a fuckwit" to filter them out for each other.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • mikestew 5y ago
    When I read articles like this, I suspect the submitter in many cases is posting with an implicit statement of "look at this fuckwit; let the comments begin!". I just wish, as you say, there were a way to get that out of the way upfront before I waste time on the article. As a sidenote, your "written by a fuckwit" came very close to me having to clean Mac and Cheese off my monitor.
• titzer 5y ago
  A car is not a knife; you don't wield it in your kitchen by yourself. Everything needs reasonable limitations that balance the rights of others in society. Surely there are reasonable limitations on how much acceleration a stock car should have.
• rascul 5y ago
  > He had me until “It’s not clear Americans can handle this kind of power”. It always turns me off when someone says something like "people from some country do/don't do/can/can't" when almost every time it has nothing to do with what country the person is from.